In the Batken region, a few kilometers west of the village of Samarkandyk, in the Shadymir area of the Sary-Tuu massif, lead and iron mining was actively conducted in the VI-IX centuries. Ancient smelting furnaces were discovered 8-10 km to the northeast. One of them has been completely preserved, as evidenced by the presence of several air holes, so-called "blowholes," and the remaining slag from ore smelting. This suggests that iron ore was smelted here, rather than the silver ore known as the "mine of doom" Kan-i-Guta (there are many occurrences of "limonite" iron ore nearby in the Madigen area and the Ris-say itself, and there is even an ancient adit for its extraction), for the production of utilitarian iron products and tools that were more necessary for daily life, hunting, and warfare. However, archaeologists still have many questions and mysteries. We hope that their research will yield results of practical significance even today.
